If you’ve ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you’ve ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or “drug paraphernalia” in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who’s ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a “record” financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

The banks’ laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC’s Mexican branches and “deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows.”

This bears repeating: in order to more efficiently move as much illegal money as possible into the “legitimate” banking institution HSBC, drug dealers specifically designed boxes to fit through the bank’s teller windows. Tony Montana’s henchmen marching dufflebags of cash into the fictional “American City Bank” in Miami was actually more subtle than what the cartels were doing when they washed their cash through one of Britain’s most storied financial institutions.

Though this was not stated explicitly, the government’s rationale in not pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently rooted in concerns that putting executives from a “systemically important institution” in jail for drug laundering would threaten the stability of the financial system. The New York Times put it this way:

Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the reasoning here is beyond flawed. When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC’s Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn’t protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most “reputable” banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can’t be repeated often enough) murderersand terrorists. Even more shocking, the Justice Department’s response to learning about all of this was to do exactly the same thing that the HSBC executives did in the first place to get themselves in trouble – they took money to look the other way.

Revelations regarding this renegade agency over the past few days are enough to make more than a few of us shake our heads in disbelief, as culpable federal officials are, once again, not being held accountable for their misdeeds.

Essentially, both agencies developed a scheme to help facilitate the sale of guns to Mexican drug cartel members so they could track them back to the cartels, but at some point along the way, they lost track of them. Eventually, some 2,000 guns were allowed to “walk” across the U.S. border into Mexico, where the agencies promptly lost track of them.

Two of the weapons eventually turned up again: at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, 40, who was gunned down near Rio Rico, Ariz., by suspected Mexican drug cartel operatives last December. And there have been more operation-related weapons discovered at additional crime scenes north and south of the U.S. border since. The government admitted last month that it knew of a total of 11 weapons used in crimes that were tied to the operation, but inquisitive lawmakers have found out it’s really nearly double that number.

In a letter to Anne Scheel, newly appointed U.S. District Attorney for Arizona, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., are demanding to know why Assistant U.S. District Attorney Emory Hurley and then U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke failed to disclose the connection, choosing instead, according to an internal email between them, to keep it secret, so as not to “divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case.”

“The level of involvement of the United States Attorney’s Office in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” both lawmakers said in their letter to Sheel.

More like criminal, mostly because the discovery of Fast and Furious related weapons at future crime scenes is only likely to grow. Grassley, in a statement released earlier in the week, said the number of weapons “will likely rise until the more than 1,000 guns that were allowed to fall into the hands of bad guys are recovered most likely years down the road.”

What about Ken Melton, the former acting head of the ATF who helped run the operation? Well, he was just sacked in what the government, most likely, hoped would be a satisfactory “punishment.”

Only, Melton isn’t facing any criminal charges. In fact, he’s still got a taxpayer supported government job. Rather than holing up in a jail cell somewhere, Melton has been moved to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, where he reportedly will become senior advisor for forensic science.

How does a guy responsible for running an operation that helped provide weapons to criminal drug cartels, one of which was used to kill a fellow federal agent, wind up with a job at the Justice Department’s legal policy office? Simple; it’s the age-old case of the cover-up, and it’s one of the main reasons why American government bureaucracy these days is so often a case study in dysfunction.

These people are not like you and I (and I am not talking about the traffickers)

Producing and distributing illegal drugs is a profitable business, because there will always be a lot of demand and because illegality allows you to charge a great deal of money. That illegality also means that the people who produce and distribute the drugs are generally not responsible corporate citizens. So thanks to our expensive, terribly ineffective and endless war on drugs, lots of people are dying.

The children’s rights group estimates that 994 people younger than 18 were killed in drug-related violence between late 2006 and late 2010, based on media accounts, which are incomplete because newspapers are often too intimidated to report drug-related crimes. […] Government figures include all homicides of people younger than 17, capturing victims whose murders might not have been related to drugs or organized crime. In 2009, the last year for which there is data, 1,180 children were killed, half in shootings.

U.S. and Mexican officials say the grotesque violence is a symptom the cartels have been wounded by police and soldiers. “It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs,” said Michele Leonhart, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The cartels “are like caged animals, attacking one another,” she added.

It seems “contradictory” because that is absolutely appalling spin. For one thing, these “caged animals” are actually attacking civilians and children. And they are doing so because the drug war has made their chosen industry both profitable and dangerous enough to make murder and brutality effective means of winning competitive advantages. If this is a sign of success, maybe we should reconsider waging this war.

Leonhart, a DEA lifer, is actually a Bush appointee, reappointed by President Obama. She is, obviously, an inflexible zealot when it comes to drug prohibition. This is easily the worst and most offensive thing she’s said that I’ve read, but she does have a history of asinine remarks. This is the sort of quote — dead children are a sign that we’re winning! — that should lead to a resignation. But it probably won’t.

Using this kind of muddy logic the CIA should be included in the terrorist list, no ? After all, evidence has shown that the CIA has been involved in the illegal drug trade business since the 1970s.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Key US lawmakers urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a letter released Friday to support labeling Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups and craft a strategy to help Mexico defeat them.

“The Mexican drug cartels present a dangerous threat to the national security of the United States,” said the group, led by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, a Republican.

“It is clear violent actions taken by the Mexican drug cartels have evolved and are acts of terrorism. These cartels should be classified as terrorist organizations,” they wrote.

“I strongly urge you to use every capability of the US Government to counter this growing threat to our economy, our security and well being of our citizens. Equally as important, we must make sure Mexico does not become a failed state and yet another haven for terrorists,” the letter said.

The lawmakers warned that escalating violence perpetrated by the cartels in Mexico “threatens the very foundation of that nation” and threatens to turn into into “a lawless haven.”

The letter noted that former president Bill Clinton designated the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as a terrorist group in the 1990s, and urged “a comprehensive strategy” to help Mexico beat the cartels.

“This strategy should include plans to expedite funding for resources to Mexico for intelligence, training, and technical assistance programs,” drawing lessons from US efforts to help Colombia beat back the FARC, they said.

The wave of drug-related killings which has claimed more than 34,000 lives in the past four years drew thousands of protesters onto the streets of Mexico.

Fifty-nine bodies have been found buried in pits in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, near the site where suspected drug gang members massacred 72 migrants last summer, officials said.

Security forces investigating reports that a passenger bus had been hijacked in the area conducted a raid and arrested 11 suspected kidnappers and freed five kidnap victims. They discovered eight pits containing 59 corpses. One of the pits held 43 dead.

The bodies are being examined to determine whether they were passengers on a bus who were reportedly abducted on 25 March, the Tamaulipas state government said in statement in which it “energetically condemned” the crimes.

The statement did not identify to which drug gang, if any, the 11 arrested suspects belonged, or why they might have hijacked the bus.

The pits were found in the farm hamlet of La Joya in the township of San Fernando, same area where the bodies of 72 migrant workers were found shot on August 24 at a ranch.

Authorities blamed that massacre on the Zetas drug gang, which is fighting its one-time allies in the Gulf cartel for control of the region.

The victims in the August massacre were illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Brazil. An Ecuadorean and Honduran survived the attack, which Mexican authorities say occurred after the migrants refused to work for the cartel.

Mexican drug cartels have taken to recruiting migrants, common criminals and youths, authorities say.

It was unclear if the victims found on Wednesday were migrants, who frequently travel by bus in Mexico.

But drug gunmen also operate kidnapping rings and erect roadblocks on highways in Tamaulipas and other northern states, where they hijack vehicles and rob and sometimes kill passengers. San Fernando is on a major highway that leads to the US border.

Drug gangs across Mexico sometimes use mass graves to dispose of the bodies of executed rivals.

The wave of drug-related killings that has claimed more than 34,000 lives in the four years since the government launched an offensive against drug cartels drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Mexico’s capital and several other cities on Wednesday in marches against violence.

Many of the protesters said the government offensive haD stirred up the violence.

“We need to end this war, because it is a senseless war that the government started,” said protester Alma Lilia Roura, 60, an art historian.

Several thousand people joined the demonstration in Mexico City, chanting “No More Blood!” and “Not One More!” A similar number marched through the southern city of Cuernavaca.

Parents marched with toddlers, and protesters held up signs highlighting the disproportionate toll among the nation’s youth. “Today a student, tomorrow a corpse,” read one sign carried by demonstrators.

The marches were spurred in part by the killing on 28 March of Juan Francisco Sicilia, the son of Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, and six other people in Cuernavaca.

“We are putting pressure on the government, because this can’t go on,” said the elder Sicilia. “It seems that we are like animals that can be murdered with impunity.”